I know a boxing trainer who insists that, when training for a fight with one-minute breaks between rounds, it will give you an edge conditionally over your opponent to use only 30-second breaks during training. Unless the other guy's trainer has the same idea, of course. Common sense seems to suggest that's correct, but sadly common sense is not always the best approach.

3 Answers
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This reminds me of a training technique my old track and field trainer sometimes used for condition training. If you get short(er) breaks then you'll be forced to run (or in this case fight) while you are more fatigued than usual which indeed is good for condition training. It will also teach you to "keep up" your coordination and technique while running/fighting.
However, if you want to focus on improving your technique then it's better if you are well-rested and this method should not be used.

It depends on what martial art you are training for. Which one are you doing?

Shortening the rest intervals is a great idea because it makes you get used to fighting with less energy, thus you get stronger and accustomed (sharper under more strain) to it. I would highly suggest doing this. Though, I would still suggest doing at least one practice a week using the normal intervals so that you are used to that as well. At least from a self-defense standpoint, it would be best to work down to having one long continuous round to mimic a situation where you may not have the option to rest.

You can also take the opposite approach and instead of shortening rest period, increase the round time. This will help build your endurance. Make sure to fight with the same intensity throughout as you would with the regular interval as you don't want to think you have more time to accomplish the same goal.

Thanks, increasing round time is a great idea. Currently I am training boxing, btw.
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Robert PetermeierMar 24 '12 at 13:12

Boxing, so this definitely applies to you. I do Taekwondo btw, so I'm not claiming any specific boxing expertise. But if your competition has 5 rounds of 2 min each and you train to be able to do 5 rounds of 4 min each, the 2 min rounds should be cake! But that means you should be trying to throw twice as many punches and equally trying to dodge twice as many hits in the 4 min rounds.
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riotburnMar 26 '12 at 18:05

There's a confounding variable here. The adrenaline you'll experience in an actual fight will be different from what you'll experience in training. There's no way to properly test someone's conditioning while they're in a fight, so you're never going to get anything more substantiated.

It's a good hypothesis, and it makes sense to put your body under more stress than you expect to have to deal with for training, but it'll never be more than a hypothesis.